Maya Khankhoje dreams of walking alongside the fringe dwellers one of these days

Malinali's Story:

My people travelled far and wide in search of an island in the middle of a lake with an eagle standing on a cactus devouring a serpent. They named this place Tenochtitlan , and later Mexico City , now one of the most polluted cities on this planet. My people used to worship the sun god and his consort, the moon goddess, and they would sometimes even spill their own blood to keep the planets in constant movement. I have never understood human sacrifice, but I do understand that the universe is a tightly knit web. O Texcatlipoca, Father Sun, beam your bright smile on us! O Ix Chel, Mother Moon, make the land bear fruit.

Nalini's Story:

Nalini is a pond where lotus flowers blossom. We hold lotus flowers sacred because they push their way through stagnant water, unsullied and beautiful, like a soul that has not yet accumulated bad karma. That is why our gods and goddesses always sit on lotus petals, to remind us that even mud can be the dwelling place of beauty. I long to return to that lotus pond one day, safe from chemical catastrophes, nuclear holocausts and bloodshed in the name of god.

Fidelito's Story:

I come from an island with one of the highest literacy rates in the world. And yet, many of my friends are discontent with their lot and their children grow stunted. Since we have no gasoline to carry food from the country to the city, we have built our own urban gardens in Havana , on rooftops and factory yards and public parks. We have also rediscovered the joys of cycling and the heady feeling of clean air. Venceremos! We shall overcome.

Natasha's Story:

My grandmother died at the age of 103. They say her daily glass of kefir kept death at bay. She said it was the daily trek in search of spring water. I say it was her indomitable spirit. But my little Liudmilla was not so lucky. She was felled by the ill winds that blew from Chernobyl . And my kid brother got lost in the capitals of Europe , driving fast cars and drinking vodka with his tough friends. He forgot what Tolstoy used to say about greed. At the end of the day, said Lev, a man only needs six feet of land, no more and no less.

Agaluk's Story:

They call us Eskimos, because we eat raw meat. We call ourselves the Inuit and have lived on top of the world for as long as ice has reigned there. It is not true that we would let our elders drift on an ice floe all the way to eternal night. But it is true that we sometimes faced hard choices: either the old survived longer, or the young did not thrive at all. Things are different now. Our way of life has been disrupted by low level flights that scare our caribou and our bears and our children, because the North, they say, is uninhabited. But we are the Inuit, the people, and we still live there.

Sachi's Story:

My name Sachi means jungle and Sisa, my sister's name, means flower, a fitting name for two children of the Amazon. My mother looks after our little family and my father looks after our little hamlet. Every week or so my father paddles down to the nearest town and chats with other leaders on the internet. They arrange for visitors to come once a year, during the minga, when they can help us harvest our crops. In exchange, we teach them our healing arts. Once a visitor panicked and killed a strange-looking insect and the whole community pounced on him. He didn't know that you don't kill any living creature unless you plan to eat it or it threatens your life. We had to remind him that his soul might one day return in the body of a butterfly or a jaguar!

Karl's Story:

I was born in a country where we used to worship trees, like the Christmas tree. But now people worship high-tech. My sister Petra died of cancer, my uncle Konrad got multiple sclerosis and my cousin Henrich took to drugs.

My hero is Einstein, who discovered how the atom splits, how time and space warp and how all things are relative. He became sad when they used his knowledge to make atom bombs, but he never stopped playing the violin or laughing at his own jokes.

Karim's Story:

I am a Bedouin and I still follow my ancestors' ways. I wouldn't hesitate to drink camel urine if I were parched, nor would I hesitate to share my last sip of water even with my worst enemy: that is the law of the desert. But our land was not always a desert. My nana told me that long ago, but not far away, the fish and shells trapped in desert stone actually swam in a deep blue sea. That is why I never spill water.

Mary's Story:

They call us the Aborigines, because they say we have been on this land since its origins. Others say we trekked all the way from South East Asia hundreds of thousands of years ago. Later on, other people came from across the seas and started building big cities along the coast, pushing us back further inland. They say we are the fringe dwellers. We say, they are the fringe dwellers.

Lao Tzu's Story:

I was born hundreds and hundreds of years ago in a land called China . In my times people knew that if you follow the Way, you cannot get lost. If you follow the Way, or the right path, you will use horses to haul manure. If you stray from the Way, you will use them for war. The greatest evil is to always want more, the worst luck is to always be discontent. If you understand that enough is enough, then you understand enough.

© Maya Khankhoje